Google’s “Search Plus Your World” Promo Returns

I was surprised to see a promotion for Google’s “Search Plus Your World” feature turn up in my search results today. I was even more surprised that even after I dismissed it, the promo returned at least twice more.

It’s Not Your Imagination

Apparently, I’m not the only one. I can see others on Twitter complaining about it:

The Promos

We’re now three months into the launch, but for some reason, Google’s apparently decided everyone need a reminder about it. At least two slightly different promos are now running. There’s this one that I initially saw and which Chen posted:

There’s also this, which I saw when doing further searches. I’ve also shown how it appeared just above my first search result:

Dismissed, Yet It Returns

The promos all have a little X button to the right to dismiss them. That’s the surprising thing. I clicked on this when I saw the first promo. Then when I searched again, the second version appeared despite having been dismissed. Curious, I searched again, and the promo still appeared. But then after another search, it finally was gone.

My guess is that Google has decided to show the promotion to everyone signed-in to Google, perhaps even if they’ve dismissed it the first time, for a maximum of three views. I’m checking on this and will post more, if I hear back.

Postscript (11:00 PM ET): Google tells me this was a bug that’s now fixed. Once dismissed, the message shouldn’t return.